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This large (2.5 by 2.2 metres), colorful and complex map of Pacific tectonic activity was produced by the Academy of Sciences of the Soviet Union. Printed on 6 sheets the Tectonic Map of the Pacific Segment of the Earth, spans an area from the Bering Straits in the north to Antarctica in the south, from the Americas in the west to the countries of South-East Asia. This is a large map covering a large area.

Tectonics, and the structural activity such as volcanoes and earthquakes that result, are a tricky thing to show, as can be seen on the map. Fault lines, areas of volcanic and earthquake zones and different eras of geological time often overlap and make for a complicated view where it is tricky to get an idea of where you are without closer inspection. Due to the large area covered

the projection means the countries portrayed follow the curvature of the earth, so the Americas starts at the top middle and then goes down the right-hand side of the map while the Soviet Union and then the countries of east Asia; China, Malaysia, Cambodia and so on are on the left. Australia is above the legend on the bottom left sheet.

The two blue lines running from north-west to south-east represent the Great Barrier Reef

Japans complex geological make-up can be seen by the amount of detail overlaying the islands.The black dots are volcanoes, the black lines with spikes are main fault zones while the purple lines are geosyncline trenches (folds in the earths crust). The different colours represent different eras in geologically history.

At the time this map was published the concept of tectonics was going through major changes. The discovery, made after important mapping surveys of the oceans floors in the 1950’s and 1960’s, of seafloor spreading (where vents on the ocean floor bring up rocks from the earth which slowly, very slowly, spread out until they meet the edge of the continental shelf and disappear back into the earth again like a conveyor belt) led to the somewhat grudging acceptance of plate tectonics in the mid-1960s. Tectonic plates are a series of large and numerous smaller plates that make up the surface of the Earth, and it is the movement of these plates that creates areas of weakness in the Earth leading to, amongst other things, volcanoes and earthquakes. Plate tectonics and continental drift explain a great deal about the Earth; how South America looks like it could join up with Africa like a giant jigsaw (something which has been puzzling people since the 1600s), how fossil strata and rock formations match up in countries separated by vast oceans, how the same rocks are found on shores thousands of miles apart. As Bill Bryson notes in his book A short history of nearly everything the acceptance of these theories suddenly meant that ‘Geologists…found themselves in the giddy position where the whole Earth suddenly made sense’.

The volcano of Krakatoa, the black dot at the northern end of the orange line, between Java and Sumatra.

The idea behind plate tectonics, that the earths crust could move, had its origins in ideas from the turn of the century. One of the earliest exponents of drifting continents was Alfred Wegener, a German meteorologist. He published a book in 1912 called Die Entstehung der Kontinente und Ozeane setting out the theory that the continents were once all joined together and had, throughout time, separated and re-joined in different ways a number of times. Here is the title page from the earliest English translation in the Bodleian from 1924

Wegener’s theory didn’t go down well in the scientific community, not only going against current thinking but also coming from someone working outside the relevant disciplines, Wenger after-all, being in their eyes only a weatherman.

The Physical Atlas of Natural Phaenomena, 1849. Allen LRO 393

This extract from an atlas published in 1849 shows the volcanic activity in the Pacific area, with the red dots indicating active volcanoes, the black inactive. This map shows how the Pacific plate, which runs along the line of the activity, was evident even if Scientists of the day were unaware of the concept.

Tectonic Map of the Pacific Segment of the Earth, Academy of Sciences of the U.S.S.R. 1970. J1 (188)

‘The object of this guide is to afford an accurate description of the various competing lines from Time to Eternity, as well as of the country through which they pass; to instruct all passengers in a familiar, sometimes humourous, but always sober and rational manner; and thereby to assist the judgement in the choice of lines, so as to ensure safe and expeditious travelling. It is designed not only for travellers by rail, but for all without distinction’.

The guide mentioned in the introduction to ‘The new railway guide, or thoughts for thinkers on the road from this World to the next’ is a small 32 page book which accompanies one of the strangest maps in the Bodleian. By taking different paths from the ‘City of the World’ the traveller can find themselves either in the land of Glory or Perdition either by going through the countries of ‘Holylivingshire’ and Sanctificationshire’, or the lands of ‘Follyshire’ or ‘Evilhabitshire’. Both journeys first have to go through the rather unpleasant sounding ‘Natural Depravityshire’ , a land of swamps and strange creatures that adhere themselves to the carriages. There are 6 lines that leave the City of the World for Perdition; ignorance, superstition, infidelity, hypocrisy, fashion and intemperance lines. These are matched by the lines that leave for Glory; Popery, Protestant, Independent, Episcopalian, Presbyterian and Methodist lines.

Despite the comic aspect to the map and the title there is a clear moral message to take from the book, which is set out early in the text. ‘The accompanying map…affords a general view of the country through which the lines pass from time to eternity. There is constant traffic between the two places; and as the reader will probably have to pass at some period from the one to the other, he will do well to cast his eye over the map beforehand’.

Maps such as this are a common feature in books of the time, either travel guides, battlefield guides or books on history. This map has been cleverly designed to give, along with the accompanying text, the illusion of a real place with religious instruction and moral guidance the intended destination.

The guide then goes onto describe the countries passed through to the two destinations, giving the good points on one hand, the bad on the other. The book and map have been designed to look like standard railway guide of the time. Information is given on the quality of the carriages, gauges, prices and times of each different line as well as details of the various countries passed through. This closely mirrors authentic railway guides of the time, as can be seen from the examples here, taken from Fowler’s Railway Traveller’s Guide from circa 1840

The new railway guide, or thoughts for thinkers on the road from this World to the next…accompanied by an accurate map of the principal competing lines. 1848, 48.1515.

Projections are used to show a spherical object, the Earth, on a flat piece of paper. There are many different projections and quite a few throw the Earth into strange and unusual shapes, such as the example shown here. This map of the World uses a projection designed to show the whole of the World while keeping the spherical shape of the Globe intact. Doing so leads to a bizarre World-view though, with meridian lines radiating out from the North Pole but still allowing for a fair representation of the South Pole by curving the lines of latitude and longitude.

The benefits of the Azimuthal Equidistant Projection is that true scale can be measured between two points, and maps with this projection usually centre on a particular place, in this case London. Most of the World is accurately portrayed, and it is only the countries of Australasia, and in particular New Zealand that suffer as the lines of longitude increasingly bow out as they get further away from London.

It’s probably best not to stare too long at this map.

The World on the Azimuthal Equidistant Projection showing the true bearing and distance from London… Admiralty, 1950. B1 (1602)

This colourful and informative view of the World from 1882 is a classic example of a Victorian map. Famous battles, races of the World, information on the stars and hemispheres, lengths of rivers, heights of mountains are just some of the examples of information shown in what would have been intended primarily as a school map.

In the four corners are shown famous explorers, Columbus and Cook at top, Livingstone and Humboldt below while between there is a double hemisphere map showing the countries of the World, ocean currents and shipping routes.

This double hemisphere map also manages to include graphics showing the highest mountains and longest rivers as well as a map of the Solar System. The map also shows the natives of the World, with written descriptions of various races

as well as a diagram rather grandly titled ‘The Universal Time Dial Plate’ showing the different time zones of various cities throughout the World compared to London.

Text fills the spaces where there are no maps or pictures, telling us of the different races in the World, the way the Solar System works and the shape and size of the Earth. This is a map full of information and gives a real sense of what the Victorian world-view was. Just think how a child’s imagination would have been fired by seeing this in the classroom every day.

From plotting troop deployment to setting out enemy positions to showing the ground conditions for tank movement maps have proved vital in the planning and carrying out of military operations in time of war.

The Bodleian’s holdings before the Boer war tend to be of mapping published after the event, mainly to illustrate books, such as this plan of the battle of Austerlitz printed in 1805.

The wars in South Africa saw an increase in maps produced during the conflicts. This manuscript map of Ladysmith made before the siege in 1899 is just one example of a number of manuscript and printed maps held in the Bodleian for the Boer and Zulu wars. The map mentions how it was sketched with the aid of a prismatic compass. Ladysmith was the headquarters of the British Forces in Natal against the Boer Army during the Second Boer War.

Approaches to Ladysmith, 1897 (MS) E54:11 (39)

The huge technical demands and the importance put on accurate artillery forced a huge improvement in the production of maps by both sides in the First World War and maps in their millions were produced, often in the later stages of the conflict in mobile printing workshops in the field. As well as the more famous trench maps early tank maps were produced as well as artillery barrage mapping and maps of no-mans land.

But it was with the Second World War and the global aspect of the threat of invasion by land and sea that military mapping went to levels not seen before. Goings maps, which showed ground conditions for the movement of tanks, enemy defensive positions, not so much from an artillery point of view but more so for troop invasions, and general intelligence maps, showing ground conditions, enemy positions and strengths. Take this enemy defences map of the area around Equeurdreville, on the western outskirts of Cherbourg. All the blue symbols mark enemy defences and artillery, the location of which had been gathered from aerial photography and observations from the Resistance or off-shore reconnaissance.

Maps such as this were crucial to the planning and carrying out of the D-Day invasion in June 1944 and the importance of these maps can be seen by the level of security marked on them, including…

France 1:25,000 Sheet 31/22 S.W. 1944 C21 (19b)

Going maps show the different levels of terrain and ease of use of that terrain for tank movement. These maps are often highly coloured and very detailed, included here are allied examples from Holland (with legend)

Holland 1:25,000 going map 1944 C1:3 (300)

and an example from Italy, without the range of colour but with more description . Interesting to note the lack of information on part of the map and the way the roads have been highlighted

Italy 1:50,000 1944 C25 (21c)

This use of mapping wasn’t just restricted to the Allied forces. The Japanese General Staff (Rikugun Sanbō Honbu) produced intelligence report maps of Papua New Guinea during what the allies called the New Guinea campaign, this example shows the island of New Ireland

While these maps come from a 1:100,000 series of Poland done by the German Army, with information on terrain and geology overlaid onto a topographic map, first the complete map and then an extract of the south of Warsaw

with an extract from a another sheet in the series of the area around Kielce showing going information (sandiger lehm = sandy clay, lichter kiefernhochwald gut gangbar = light pine forest well passable).

This map, ‘Weltkarte, namen und nautische grenzen der ozeane und meere’, shows the boundaries of locations which have no physical dividing line, no obvious mountain range or river border to separate two or more different parts of the World, for this is a map that shows the boundaries of oceans and seas.

To separate the major oceans the lines have been drawn between the shortest land-masses; between Tasmania and the Antarctic to separate the Indian and Pacific oceans, between the Cape of Good Hope and Antarctic for the Indian and Atlantic oceans and between Cape Horn and the Antarctic Peninsula for the Atlantic and the Pacific. Smaller seas are separated on the same principal. The map is published by the Deutschen Hydrographischen Institut in Hamburg.

Extract from Weltkarte showing the seas around the Indonesian Archipelago

In reality a whole host of different effects cause a change in the Oceans and Seas, such as currents, temperature and salinity. An extract from ‘The World on Mercators Projection’ by James Wyld (1845) shows a number of different currents, including the cold Greenland and

Arctic currents coming up against the Gulf Stream which also runs in an opposite direction to the Arctic current that travels down the east coast of the United States. These though are in constant flux, ever-changing and unreliable so the straight lines on this chart may well after-all make the most sense.

This map doesn’t mention a source for the information shown, but this more than likely comes from the International Hydrographic Organization. Since its inception in 1921 the IHO has set the standard for information on the oceans and the seas and is now recognized as the leading authority on the subject.

Øysand is a Norwegian village on a narrow bit of land at the place where the Gaula River enters the Gauolsen, part of the Trondheim Fjord. It’s about 10 miles to the south of Trondheim. With deep fjords cutting in-land from the coast providing safe harbour the area around Trondheim was recognized by the Germans before the war as being strategically important, and with this in mind Øysand was chosen as the site of an airfield, prisoner of war camp and then post-war a German town. This rough geological sketch, dating from November 1942, of the area has been made in preparation for these to go ahead. Work started in 1943 but was soon abandoned, leaving little evidence on the ground now that such large and ambitious plans ever existed. The whole area was to be called Nordstern.

The map belonged to the Wiking Operational Group (Einsatzgruppe) of Organisation Todt, the engineering wing of the German Army. The Wiking group, as can be imagined, was responsible for Scandinavian work.

This is an interesting example of re-using old stock. James Wyld published in 1845 a ‘Post map of Europe’, showing routes of communication throughout Central Europe.

The map was printed by using a technique called copper-plate engraving. The image would be incised onto the plate which is then inked, the top surface is cleaned leaving the ink in the cuts, paper is then pressed down onto the plate. This plate could then be stored and re-used as needed, either in producing further editions of a popular map or, in this case, by changing some of the details and producing a new map at minimal cost. Being a soft metal meant that it was easy to alter or even remove information.

Images from both the original (top) map and new version (bottom) showing the changes to the date

Front and back covers for the new map, the only real change, along with the removing of the year published, in the map.

Wyld’s Post map, with the removal of the year originally published and given a new cover (but not a new title on the map), becomes ‘Wyld’s map of the theatre of war’, the war being between Prussia and Austria in 1866. The outcome, a relatively easy victory for the Prussian Army in seven weeks led to the creation of the North German Confederation. Following war with France in 1870 the remaining German states joined this Confederation, creating a Germany that was to last until the end of the First World War. Wyld’s map illustrates well the confusing make-up of the different states before unification.

German states. This photo shows how maps intended to be stored folded were protected by being cut into rectangles and then stuck onto linen. If left as a complete map the paper on the folds would quickly deteriorate, linen was a lot more suitable and long-lasting folded.

James Wyld was the middle of three cartographers, father, son and grandson, all called James. The father was Geographer to George IV and William IV while the James who produced this map was Geographer to Queen Victoria. As well as produced a large number of maps he also created

and exhibited a ‘Monster Globe’ for the Great Exhibition in 1851. This was a giant model of the Earth which was viewed from the inside.

Blandford Forum is a market town in north-east Dorset. The attractive Georgian architecture and the neat lay-out of the centre of the town are the result of a devastating fire that started on the 4th of June 1731. This map, printed soon after, dramatically shows the condition of the town in the immediate aftermath of the blaze, all the dark shaded buildings were destroyed leaving few still standing. The box at the bottom tells the story. Starting in a tallow chandlers house (A on map) at 2pm the fire soon spread to the houses between the chandler’s house and the church (B) before spreading to the properties across the road. The text ends ‘The church by the care of some of the inhabitants was preserved till about 11 at night tho’ the spire which was now covered with lead took fire within side about 4 in the afternoon which was soon extinguish’d but the fire flying over and thro’ it at every crevice, some sparks whereof lay latent till about 2 in the morning, then broke out in the middle isle under the lead, where ’twas impossible to extinguish it without engines which were already burnt many hours before, & the inhabitants so tired with much fatagues that before morning ye church was entirely destroyed ye poor remains being scarcely fit for a foundation’.

A plan of the town of Blandford with the adjacent villages of Briantstone & Blandford St Mary describing the damages in each place by the dreadfull fire which happened there on 4th of June 1731 [1731?] Gough Maps Dorset 8

Fires, and the damaged caused, do give the opportunity for re-developing, for improving road lay-out, building material and sanitation. The creators of this map, the rather unfortunately named Bastard brothers, were also the local architects, and they rebuilt Blandford with a new and improved market place, school and church. The new layout can be seen in this image of the town taken from the first edition of the Ordnance Survey, from 1888

Sheet Dorset XXV 7, 1st ed Ordnance Survey, 1888

The most famous of urban fires though is the Great Fire of London, which fanned out of Pudding Lane late in the evening of the 2nd of September 1666 and soon consumed most of the buildings within the old walls, as these maps of the damage show.

A map or groundplot of the citty of London and the suburbs thereof, that is to say all which is within the jurisdiction of the Lord Mayor…which is exactly demonstrated the present condition thereof, since the last sad accident of fire. The blanke space signifeing the burnt part & where the houses are exprest those places yet standing. 1666 Gough Maps London 7

London has a long and painful history of great fires, from the destruction caused by Boudicca in AD 61 to accidental fires in 961, 1087, 1135 1299, 1444, 1561 1619, 1698, 1716, 1725, 1748, 1814, 1834, 1838, 1861, 1874, 1882, 1917 and 1936, and these are just the major fires, there have been many smaller but damaging accidents as well.

Several propositions and schemes were offer’d the rebuild the City of London after the great fire1666…1666 Gough Maps London 11

The above is one of many different designs for the rebuilding of the city after the great fire. Proposed by Valentine Knight the scheme called for a rigid street pattern but with a greater amount of water in the shape of a canal flowing through the city. This map was printed a remarkable 18 days after the fire started. Despite further plans submitted by such notable figures as Sir Christopher Wren in the end a design based on the old lay-out was implemented, but with greater distances between houses and set rules on building materials.

A plan of all the houses destroyed & damaged by the great fire which began in Exchange Alley, Cornhill, on Friday March 25, 1748. 1748 (E) C17:70 London (317)

A map of another of London’s great fires, that of March 1748. As with the map by Valentine Knight this was produced very quickly after the incident, a mere 8 days between the fire and publication.

Finally an inset from ‘An exact surveigh of the streets lanes and churches contained within the ruines of the city of London…’ (1669 (E) C17:70 London (643) which shows the fire from Southwark.